


Law and Order: Magic Victims Unit

by MJ (mjr91)



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, M/M, Magic-Users, Minor Original Character(s), Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 15:19:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11603343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjr91/pseuds/MJ
Summary: In the criminal justice system, magically based offenses are considered especially confusing.  Hell, magic is confusing.  Someone should have warned Olivia Benson about that.





	Law and Order: Magic Victims Unit

**Author's Note:**

> Barba/Carisi by reference only. So practically gen, if that helps -- you can ignore a couple of lines. This is because in my head canon, some people just have to be magic users; it's the only possible explanation for them. Also in my head canon, Rafael Barba is -- check JK Rowling's history of American magic -- a descendant of Colonial American Auror Carlos Lopez. I consider this a fixed, settled point that allows no discussion, because it's so obvious once you know.

If there was anything guaranteed to bother Olivia Benson, it was getting called into Dodds’ office. To get there and find Chief Dodds, the Commissioner, the Manhattan DA, the EADA, and ADA Rafael Barba all there already wasn’t just bothersome, it was absolutely terrifying. To see John Munch at ease in a corner? John Munch, formerly an SVU detective, now a special investigator for the DA’s office, and a permanent member of the Tin Foil Helmet Union, being in the room added weirdness to terror, as if she’d just walked into a Wes Craven movie being played backwards.

“Sit down, Benson,” Dodds told her. Everyone else was sitting; she might as well, too, she supposed. At least nobody looked angry, panicked, or as if she were going to be suspended.

“All right,” she asked calmly. “Whose ass do I have to suspend, and why?”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” Dodds replied quickly. “Actually, we’re pleased with SVU’s work. We’re so pleased, we’re expanding it, but we’d better explain. We’ll be adding some SVU detectives, with a second bullpen, which you’ve needed, because we want you and the existing team working on a few additional cases that aren’t strictly within SVU purview.”

“In fact, they’re not SVU jurisdiction at all,” Barba inserted, stroking his tie – a heavy silk blue and lavender paisley that cost a month’s rent on Benson’s apartment, she was fairly sure – placidly. “But given the delicate nature of the cases, your team’s expertise and their occasional displays of tact, and that I’ll be assigned as the DA on them, there’s no one better to do this.”

Benson squirmed. “To do what?”

Dodds gave a tight-lipped smile. “To run MVU. Munch isn’t enough – we really need a full team when the cases are larger.”

She frowned, lips tight. “MVU?”

“Magic Victims Unit,” District Attorney Once Again Jack McCoy supplied. “You’re aware of magic users?”

Now she was confused, and she admitted it. “I know there are some strange religious groups that go around trying to wipe out magic users, but aren’t magic users just a legend?”

McCoy squirmed. “Not exactly. There is a magical community in the United States. They’re subject both to American law and to a magical governing body as well. MACUSA – the Magical Congress of the United States, or something like that. It’s headquartered here in Manhattan, and the largest community of magic users in America is in the city. Most major cities have very quiet arrangements with MACUSA to help handle crimes by and against magic users. MACUSA has a squad of something they call Aurors – magical police – and their own court system, but when non-magical citizens are involved, things become tricky. So there’s a liaison between the DA’s office and MACUSA, and someone who helps with our side of magical cases when there are non-magical citizens involved. That’s been Munch.”

Munch waved his hand. “Magic user right here.” Benson gave him the kind of look she’d have given Sonny Carisi if he said he was going to feed his boyfriend – which happened to be Barba – hand made vegetarian sushi for dinner. Some things just weren’t quite congruent with her reality.

Barba saw Benson’s consternation. “And all this time, you thought John was just an alien entity left behind by a fleeing spaceship. But we don’t have many magic users in the police or the DA’s office, so things get complicated.”

“Particularly,” McCoy followed, “because the DA’s office liaison DA just left to have a baby, and she doesn’t want to keep working. So, since he’s the only other magic user in the DA’s office, I’ve given ADA Barba the task. His family has a long-standing connection with MACUSA, so they’re very pleased with the arrangement.”

“Yeah,” Munch bitched. “It isn’t every magic user who’s a descendant of one of the first magic families in America. Barba’s mom’s family is magical law royalty. First Auror in American history, Carlos Lopez. It’s like being related to George Washington, only stranger.”

Barba scowled at Munch. “There’s something stranger than you?”

Munch held up his hands. “I didn’t say there was. I still claim the title.”

Benson was still trying to process the original information that magic users weren’t a myth and that the religious nuts out there were actually partly correct about one of their weird shit notions. If Munch and Barba were magic users, though, obviously the nuts were wrong about magic users driving the world straight to hell – like any other minority group, they were probably exactly like everyone else; some would be great people, some would be average, some would be criminal, and some… well, she hoped that Munch was the only one of whatever he was, though she’d met other people a bit like him before. It was just that none of them were nearly as well educated or well spoken as the walking cadaver king of conspiracy theory. Surely all conspiracy theorists weren’t magical, were they? Surely Art Bell and Alex Jones weren’t magical. And if someone was magical and a conspiracy theorist, did they know something other people didn’t? Munch couldn’t possibly be right about Kennedy, please God…

Wait. Magic. Fairy tales always had wizards with pots of gold. Well, that certainly explained Barba’s wardrobe. He’d obviously magically enslaved an entire Italian tailor’s shop and filled it with sewing elves who worked with nothing but cashmere, silk, and Egyptian cotton. It was the only possible explanation for Barba’s ability to afford his tailoring; he’d always said his family hadn’t had money.

Munch. Barba. Both brilliant men, but they couldn’t be less alike, though both of them certainly stood out in their own way. Was standing out like that a magic thing? Because that would explain a lot of people. And it would explain the opposite, as well – Elliot Stabler could never have been a magic user if standing out the way Munch did on the one hand, or Barba on the other, was part of it. He’d in many ways personified what Benson considered “average American.”

Oh, was she going to grill Barba the next time they had coffee. There was just too much she had to know now. If her brain didn’t implode first, which was a distinct possibility.

Uh oh, she’d zoned out on the Commissioner. “… and, of course, there’s the fact that besides Investigator Munch, there’s already a magic user in your squad.”

What? “Excuse me? There is?”

Munch chuckled. “You thought I was an alien, not a magic user. So why not another one?”

“Yes, but I didn’t believe in magic users – hell, I don’t believe in space aliens, Munch, but it was the only thing I knew of that I thought might explain you at all.” Had she just said that? Barba was looking at her approvingly. “There’s another magic user in SVU? Who? I mean, I’m not seeing anyone reading horoscopes to catch rapists, or pulling magic wands out to stop anyone.”

“That’s because they wouldn’t be admissible in the regular court system, though they are in the MACUSA courts,” the EADA explained. She waved a hand. “John does use magical techniques when he’s working on magic cases, but regular investigation and police work is also involved. If there’s a crime against a magic user by a non-magic user, obviously magic can make the investigation easier, but apprehension is going to have to be by ordinary means. The public isn’t supposed to see magic in action. Non-magic users who see it either have to be made to forget it, or, in our cases, sworn to secrecy about it. You know about the church groups that protest about magic. Everyone thinks they’re insane, and that’s deliberate. For us to acknowledge magic and magic users in public would start riots. It’s part of the job here to help keep magic quiet.”

Barba took over. “The average magic user is just like anyone else. We get up, we go to work, we buy groceries, we go to the park and walk the dog. But some people who find out about magic users are determined to attack us for who we are – it isn’t any different in that respect from a gay bashing. And while most magic users basically use magic to do things like fold the laundry or make the bed, very minor stuff, you’ve got others who are determined to use their talents to rob businesses, curse their neighbors, make an illegal killing on the stock market. They’re criminals, just like anyone else, but it takes slightly different methods to go after them. And most of the prosecution is done in MACUSA courts, even by the DA’s office. I’ve done more than a few already. The court systems are linked, so we cover them as ordinary crimes and prosecutions on the books on this side of the aisle.”

“I still don’t know who the magic user in my squad is,” Benson complained. “If we’re doing this, I need to know.”

“Think about it,” Munch encouraged. “I’m a magic user. Barba’s a magic user. Most non-magic users find that magic users seem a bit different from the normal non-magic user. We tend to stand out one way or another.”

Benson shrugged. “Fin stands out any time he talks. Carisi sticks out like a sore thumb when he’s not undercover. Rollins? I mean, really? They could all be magic users if that’s the only way to tell.”

Barba laughs, leans back, crosses his arms. “I’ll take pity on you, Liv. Just this once, so don’t ever forget this moment. I promised my abuelita and my mother that I’d never marry a non-magic user. It’s just too complicated to be in a mixed marriage. You either can’t explain it, or you’re afraid they’ll say something to the neighbors, or – well, it’s actually worse than being a closeted gay man in a straight marriage. My father was a non-maj and my mother nearly went insane. Am I dating either Detective Tutuola or Detective Rollins?”

Benson’s head is in her hands. “Carisi. My God, it explains…”

“Everything,” Barba supplied. “Even that moustache he had. I knew when I saw him he was a maj. A lot of us don’t quite get non-maj everyday appearance quite on the nose. I overdress – I know it. It’s my overdoing trying not to look like a maj. John, well, John looks like the Grim Reaper when the Grim Reaper’s having a bad day. Dominick – his family’s all maj. He went to a private maj school. They’re still in the Seventies in maj school textbooks when they study non-maj culture. It took me forever to make him realize that polyester has not been a look since before he was born.”

“Thank you for that favor,” Benson sighed.

“See, don’t say I never do anything for you. Jack, Chief, you want Munch and me to iron out details with Benson and the squad later?”

“That works,” Dodds replied. “I’ve got to find some detectives to add to Benson’s new SVU team that she won’t mind too much. And Benson, tell Carisi he needs to take his sergeant’s exam. We may need to move another magic user into the unit, and I’d like someone magical who’s senior to be able to watch over them officially.”

Benson looked over at Barba. “Sure you wouldn’t rather tell him at dinner?”

“What, and spoil your fun? Be my guest.”

She rose to exit Dodds’ office, still shell-shocked. It was going to be one of those sick headache days, wasn’t it?

Wait. There was something else Carisi, Munch, and Barba had in common. Mainlining coffee. She’d always joked it was magic… thank God there was a Starbucks around the corner. Maybe some coffee magic would rub off on her when she got there.


End file.
